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Sales are sliding and profits are plummeting at Walmart and JCPenney. And it's not only because of the economy. Both made multiple attempts to capture the elusive bargain shopper as economic woes begin to fade and consumers got back in the mood to spend. Yet both are still floundering. The glory days of Walmart's grab of marketshare are over. Now some of JCP's initiatives bear striking resemblance to the world's largest retailer's failures. Is there still hope for either?

Bentonville's Bumblings

Walmart just reported a decline of almost 15 percent in its fourth-quarter profits. The drag came partly from continued problems in apparel. Walmart's tried on other retailer's successful strategies (think designer collabs) and threw in a few of its own (back to basics! t-shirts and sweatpants in all sizes and colors!). Sadly, it still hasn't figured out what will charm the fickle but frugal fashionsta away from such reigning queens of cheap chic as Forever 21 and H&M.

Bentonville's behemoth also gambled that re-installing 8,500 products and returning to “everyday low prices” would help its namesake stores rebound. Last May, Walmart's spent a pretty penny on "It's Back" ads to tout the company's renewed focus on matching local rivals' prices as products such as fishing tackle, fabric and brand-name groceries.

The result was a drop in overall net income for the year of 4.2 percent to $15.7 billion from $16.4 billion, despite sales rising 5.9 percent during that period as it continues to compete with Dollar General and the like.

Penney's Pinching and Squeezing to Re-Make Itself

Image via Wikipedia

JCP's results, just announced this morning, aren't much better.For 2011, comparable store sales increased 0.2 percent. Total sales decreased 2.8 percent for the year. E-commerce on jcp.com remained essentially flat at $1.5 billion and gross margin decreased $742 million from last year.

JCP looks poised to turn a troubled ship around because –at least on paper-- management is making serious moves to put a fresh face on the 110-year old discount department store chain. The folks in Plano installed Apple's former retail guru Ron Johnson and executed a sweeping rebranding (hello little red, white and blue square) and advertising campaign alongside initiatives to simplify pricing (no more sales! low prices for everyone!) and replace 400 labels with 100 lines sold at brand-centric shop-in-shops.

The company recently revealed extensive plans for boosting profits which include expense cuts to the tune of $900 million to be completed over the first two years. This would lower JCP's expenses below 30 percent of sales.